The February Reading List

I can hardly believe two months of 2022 have already passed by, but yet here we are with another reading list due to be published. This month, I read on a remarkably wide range of topics from history of art to biographies of Presidents to finance. 

I hope you enjoy reading about what I've been reading below, and as always... please do reach out with your recommendations and suggestions! The recommendation list is piled about 30 high, but I will eventually get through them all!

Radical Uncertainty - Mervyn King & John Kay: 

Let's start this month's reading list off with the best book on finance I have read in an extremely long time - Radical Uncertainty by Mervyn King & John Kay. 

The reason why I like this book so much is that it poignantly addresses the issues with modern economic theory and introduces this notion of "radical uncertainty", the kind of idea which Donald Rumsfeld named as "Unknown Unknowns". 

Much of economic theory is based on the fact that consumers act rationally and adjust their expectations and form probabilisitic beliefs over a wide range of alternatives. This can kind of be thought of as a Bayesian pendulum which swings back and forth as new information comes to light. 

But Kay & King spend a significant portion of the book explaining why this is such a flawed notion. The development of the Personal Computer in 1920 was an unknown unknown, as was the iPhone in 2000. 

What is particularly marvellous about this book though is the way in which the economics is explained to any audience. I can easily recommend this book to a non-economics audience because it is simply so well written and replete with examples which are easy to understand. One such example the authors return to over and over again is the decision by Barack Obama to attempt to kill Bin Laden in the compound in Pakistan. 

There was no guarantee the "man and family" were Bin Laden's, but there was some degree of chance that it would be - the reality is though, nobody knew how likely it was that it was indeed Bin Laden, and Obama, certainly did not have a sample set of previous instances on which to form a probability distribution. Thus, there was the presence of radical uncertainty. 

I know I've rambled on a bit in this review, so I'll keep the others a bit shorter... but to anyone in an economics/finance background - this is a MUST READ! 

The Story of Art - E.H. Gombrich

Well, this was a book which I maybe hadn't expected to enjoy, but thanks to Ben Connole for the recommendation. Simply put, this book is magisterial and a masterpiece, yet it is also highly suitable for those who are completely new to the mystical world of art. 

Without doubt, this stands as my favourite book on the reading list this month simply because it was so purely enjoyable. I now feel able to tell apart, at the very least, different periods of art and have been extremely inclined to go out and read more. With my trusty guide, I am certain I can now serve as a more useful tour guide on museum trips with the family, and it's worth reading just for this. The best way of describing this book is as a picture book for adults, but this is what makes it so delightful to read. 

The edition linked above is an absolutely pristine and beautiful book with laminated pages to really bring the art to life. For people who are looking for a simple primer to this fantastical world, look no further. 

Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern - Mary Beard

When I bought this one, I don't think I quite understood what I was buying. Nevertheless, Twelve Caesars is a highly enjoyable read which looks at how our understanding of the original 12 Caesars has been influenced in the past in no small part by a collection of fakes, rip-offs, and replicas.

In Twelve Caesars, Mary Beard takes us through the Roman Empire with looking at historical artefacts, coins and art, and illustrates how many of the "treasures" of the Roman world we are actually unable to say much more than this is a "Roman Man", whereas previously people would have been quick to say "that's [Insert Roman Emperor here]". 

For me, by far the most interesting section of the book concerned how Andrew Jackson (that controversial seventh US President), refused to be buried in what was believed to be for Roman Emperor Alexander Severus (not one of the household name emperors but nonetheless) due to his desire to not appear imperial. These connections between the ancient world and the modern were very interesting, although... I would recommend reading in short stints... there's only so many pages in a row one can read on Roman coinage :) 

The New Silk Roads - Peter Frankopan: 

First of all, I'd like to start with some criticisms of this book. In my opinion, Frankopan takes too soft of a view on China throughout the book. Pertinent issues like the treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang are basically passed over (sure... this is a more topical issue now than it was a couple of years ago), and other areas of human rights abuses seem to be neglected. 

Right, with that out of the way, the fact of the matter is that Frankopan presents a narrative which should be deeply concerning for the Western Reader. That is, we are in a pertinent decline and can never hope to rival the dominance of Asia once again where population is highest and living standards rising the fastest. 

Frankopan outlines, in considerable depth, the significant policy errors which the West has made in its approach to the East in the last decades, focusing a lot on issues like the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Americans' attempts to woo India when it still has such close ties with Russia, and more. I found the entire book quite disturbing - particularly when reading in the midst of crisis in Ukraine which once again the West is powerless to do anything about given our total reliance on Russian commodities. 

I highly recommend this book in the current climate. It is topical and interesting and well worth your time. 

The Presidents - Iain Dale: 

For lovers of American history, this one cannot be missed. Even for those of you with limited interest in reading a biography (15-20 pages each) of every President, this book should be purchased to simply keep as a manual to hand. That way, whenever you here a comparison to some old President being made  on the news, you have a handy reference manual to see what their major achievements and failings were. 

What I particularly liked reading this cover to cover was learning about all those forgotten presidents. For instance, I did not know that the first Harrison died after contracting pneumonia for refusing to wear a coat at his inauguration - the only president to essentially die from machismo. 

Then there were the more familiar biographies of the twentieth century. Despite having studied LBJ extensively previously, I learnt a lot and significantly enjoyed George Osborne's biography of him. Nonetheless, my favourite President remains Theodore Roosevelt - The Bull Moose! The man who was shot while giving a speech and then proceeded to give the full speech for another 84 minutes, having figured it wasn't a lethal wound. 

I liked this book a lot, and it's something which can certainly help you out with any pub quizzes whenever asked about President X's VP, wife or any number of other random trivia. 

Next Month: 

Next month, I'm going to try and read as topically as possible given the current global geopolitical tension. I'm going to read Putin's People (by Catherine Belton) - attentive readers will notice that I have previously said I was going to read this before... but never wrote on it so I'm going to read again and then have it as a formal part of the reading list this month - thanks to Asaad Qureshi for the recommendation. 

Also on the list, is Roberts' biography of Churchill (standing at a whopping thousand pages), The Prime Ministers - Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to Johnson by Steve Richards, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, and the Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy. 

All-in-all, this should serve as a good lesson in geopolitics - it can't come soon enough!